The territory of Croatia has stood for centuries on the border of Western and Eastern cultural influences: Western and Eastern Roman Empire, Frankish and Byzantine Empires,Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, Christianity and Islam.

This union of cultures and resultant synthesis are reflected in a number of distinctive monuments of art which will meet the expectations of the most demanding art experts. There is no country anywhere in the world whose cultural heritage and artistic contribution can be regarded as being equally valuable throughout all the periods of its history.

Three Croatian urban areas and two historical architectural complex have been pronounced World Cultural Heritage Sites by UNESCO: the Antique Diocletian Palace in Split, the Basilica of St. Euphrasius in Poreč, the Šibenik Cathedral and the towns of Dubrovnik, Trogir, Stari Grad and Plitvice Lakes.

Just like its art, Croatia's cuisine was affected by the same influences over the same period. The mainland cuisine is more characterized by the earlier Proto-Slavic and the more recent contacts with the Hungarian, Viennese and Turkish gastronomic orders. The coastal region bears the influences of the Greek, Roman and Illyrian, as well as of the later Mediterranean cuisine - Italian and French.

In Croatia, there are more than fifty different indigenous dishes and as many autochthonous kinds of cheese and dessert. In the coastal area, popular dishes include Dalmatinian-style fish stew, seafood soup and seafood salad.

Croatia offers a variety of excellent wines. The popular red wines of Mediterranean Croatia are teran, merlot, cabernet, opolo, plavac, dingac and postup. Popular white wines are malvazija, posip, pinot, kujundzusa and muscat.

The Adriatic Sea, named after an ancient port, is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, between Italy and the Balkan Peninsula. It is between 58 and 140 mi (93-225 km) wide, with a maximum depth of approximately 4-100 ft (1,250 m). The name has existed since the Antique; in Latin it was Mare Hadriaticum. In modern languages, it's Mare Adriatico in Italian and Jadransko more in Croatian.

The northern part of the sea is very shallow, and between the southern promontories of Istria and Rimini the depth rarely exceeds 25 fathoms (46 m). Between Šibenik and Ortona a well-marked depression occurs, a considerable area of which exceeds 100 fathoms (180 m) in depth. The deepest part of the sea lies east of Monte Gargano, south of Dubrovnik, and west of Durrës where a large basin gives depths of 500 fathoms (900 m) or more, and a small area in the south of this basin falls below 800 (1,460 m). The mean depth of the sea is estimated at 133 fathoms (240 m).

The climate in the Adriatic is typically a Mediterranean one, with mild rainy winters, and hot and dry summers. Summer temperatures rise up to 34°C in July in the northern part, and up to as much as 38°C in the southern part (Dubrovnik).